Enfield Man Gets 15 Years In Wife's Death

HARTFORD — An Enfield man was sentenced to 15 years in prison Wednesday for the 2014 killing of his disabled wife.

John Dewees Jr., 50, pleaded guilty in April to manslaughter and cruelty to persons rather than risk a trial.

At his sentencing hearing in Superior Court in Hartford, prosecutor Vicki Melchiorre described Dewees as an abuser who victimized his wife and son.

"This was a combination of outright neglect and abuse," Melchiorre told Superior Court Judge Joan K. Alexander in Hartford. "This defendant beat his wife to death because he was tired of taking care of her, tired of waiting for her to die."

Anja Dewees, 45, weighed only 70 pounds when she was found dead in the family's Enfield home on May 22, 2014. She was chronically ill as a result of alcoholism and liver failure, according to court records and statements in court.

Dewees' son, who did not attend the sentencing, misses his mother and "never wants anything to do with his father again," Melchiorre told the judge. "He hopes he rots in jail."

Dewees' defense attorney, Gerald Klein of Hartford, told the judge that there were no prior reports of abuse to the police or by medical providers who treated Anja Dewees.

"If there was ongoing abuse, the hospital personnel would have been under a duty to call police," he said. If the abuse was ongoing, a neighbor would have overheard something or some other evidence would have emerged, he said.

Dewees told the judge that he always loved his wife. "We have our problems, but I never abused her," he said. "I loved my wife. I still love her."

Alexander told Dewees that he should have sought help when caring for his wife became so difficult. "Your neglect and lack of care of your wife did result in her demise," the judge said. Anja Dewees was also seriously ill, the judge said, and "was a woman dying of her own illness."

She then sentenced Dewees to 25 years in prison, suspended after he serves 15 years, and five years of probation. While on probation, Alexander ordered, Dewees is not to consume alcohol.

Police went to Dewees' Magnolia Drive home on May 22, 2014, after a neighbor reported that Dewees had told him his wife was dead.

"I killed her," Dewees told the neighbor, according to police. Anja Dewees, 45, had died two days earlier. Dewees told police he put her body in an old waterbed mattress and then wrapped it in plastic to contain the smell.

Dewees provided several stories about his wife's injuries and death to Enfield detectives. Dewees had been caring for her for about four years, which included changing diapers and bathing her. On the night she died, Melchiorre said in April, Dewees and his wife had been drinking when she soiled herself. He carried her upstairs to clean her.

"He threw her into the bathtub with enough force to crack her skull," Melchiorre said.

Although Dewees initially said he dropped his wife into the tub, Melchiorre said the state medical examiner found that the injuries were caused by much greater force.

Dewees also kicked his wife in the stomach while taking her out of the tub, causing internal injuries, then put her to bed, where he elbowed her with enough force to break some ribs, Melchiorre said.

He then fell asleep. When he woke up the next morning, his wife was dead, Melchiorre said.

Enfield police initially charged Dewees with manslaughter, but Melchiorre increased the charge to murder after additional investigation contradicted some of what Dewees told police.

Chief Medical Examiner Dr. James Gill testified at a preliminary hearing in August 2014 that Anja Dewees sustained a variety of injuries that were inflicted with significant force, including a lacerated liver, rib fractures, bruises and cuts, and the serious head injury. He said it was his opinion that the injuries were caused by numerous blows to her body.

"This was not from an accidental fall into a bathtub," Gill testified. "This was inflicted injury and this was a homicide."